Grey & Kyla’s Anime Site

Calling All ABM-ers!

Sure, this anime blog has fallen into horrible disuse, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still love anime! And since the ABM! forums have long since disappeared, maybe now is the time for someone to pick up where they left off…

And so I present, A.E.I.O.U.

(Once DNS fully propagates, that is.)

Screencaps B Gone

I’ve redacted the recap entries for Mai Otome to remove image links that no longer work. (I realized I should get right on that as soon as I looked at my newly-rotated error logs. Oops. So many 404s…) This means that some of the writing looks a bit odd, as if you’re supposed to be able to see things that aren’t there. Ah well. Such is the nature of the World Wide Web, no?

Also in the “More Things That Are Painfully Obvious” category: I didn’t finish “blogging” the series. A great many things “went pearshaped,” as the term goes, at the top of the year. When you get right down to it, though, I wasn’t contributing a great deal to the recapping effort. As I predicted, Otome was one of the better-covered shows in its season.

There’s a “final thoughts” entry brewing, and I think a series review entry is in order. I also need to write about Noir, those Dirty Pair DVDs I picked up on the cheap recently, and a couple of movies I’ve seen. I think full reviews are a better use for my skills than screencap-laden blow-by-blow blogging. At least, it’s resembles honest work a lot less, and hey, this is my “free time” we’re talking about.

So, stay tuned for things that aren’t quite so cheesy or poorly-written, won’t you?

This is all EK’s fault.

I assure you, I wouldn’t do this sort of thing unless provoked. Honest. See, it started with this:

Dear World, Here is the album I want:
Peter Garrett sings The Best of Anime Theme Songs

To which someone replied with,

We don’t serve your country
Don’t serve your king
White man karaoked songs we sing
White man licensed everything

EK herself responded with a couplet:

HOW CAN WE SLEEP WHILE 4KIDS IS DUBBING
HOW CAN WE DANCE WHILE IDIOTS ARE FANSUBBING

At this point I simply could not stand (or sit, for that matter) idly by. Action needed taking, and problems should be solved by those who perceive them, or some-such. This, then, is what resulted:

So I’m caught at the website still waiting for torrent posts
Wipe sweat off my brow, keep on clicking search engines
Hope the crumbs in my keyboard can keep me for another night
And if the fansub torrent posting scene won’t come to my rescue
If the anime dubbing industry won’t save me
Who’s gonna save me?

But if I click all day at the torrent site
(There’ll be files on the hard drive tonight)
Still I scroll up and down on the torrent site
(There’ll be high bandwidth usage tonight)

And some have RAWs from a distant shore
And the fansubbers take what the fanboy hordes want
And nothing’s as anxious, as a codec not found…

It’s all EK’s fault. I swear it.

(I owe you all a post about my lack of Otome recaps. I know this. You’ll get it, some day soon.)

Mai Otome #12

And with this recap I am fully caught up for the first time since… well, let’s not dwell on that, shall we? Let’s instead get on with what must be my most detailed and screenshot-laden recap to date.

Princess Akira, I mean Prince Takumi, is making Mashiro’s staff nervous with his stern behaviour. It’s not as though they aren’t already nervous enough on account of not knowing Mashiro’s whereabouts. Nina and Arika’s arrival presents them with a possible, albeit farfetched, solution: Have Arika stand in for the queen!

I’ll pause for a moment and bask in the delicate subtlety of this plot device.
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Mai Otome #11

Here’s the second recap of the week! This time I’ll be relying heavily on screencaps, partly because there really isn’t that much to say about the episode itself, and partly because there’s something of a theme for this episode that’s best expressed visually. What’s this theme, you ask? It’s “The Many Faces of Nina Wong (And Various Other Persons)”.

The plot, in a nutshell, goes something like this: We learn from the girls that Arika retook the hike challenge and aced it, solo, which brought her ranking in the class way, way up. It’s Nina’s birthday, and the Queen’s birthday… and Arika’s birthday too. That last coincidence unnerves Nina greatly as it suggests to her that her adoptive father picked this date to be her “birthday” because of Arika, whose presumed mother Sergei apparently longed for.
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Mai Otome #10

Double-digits at last! Yes, I’m still behind… way, way behind. This week we’ll be getting fully caught up, however! (Really!) Bringing this project back up to speed, however, may entail posting one or two moderately terse recaps but at least I’ve thrown some screenies into the mix to keep things entertaining.

We pick up a bit before where we left off, with everyone wondering where Arika and Erstin have gone. Nagi seems to have a pretty good idea, and sends Sergei off to assist in the search. His little motorboat arrives just in time to see Arika’s fall from the cliff edge. The cyborg from Aswald spots him and summons a Slave (how convenient is it that it’s an aquatic type?) to get rid of this intruder who might, after all, rescue that inconvenient witness. Sergei, for some reason, thinks that weilding a speargun will make for a fair fight. The Slave destroys the boat and… well, that’s all we get for a little while.
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Top Ten Anime DVDs of 2005…?

(Yes, I know. No Mai Otome recap? For shame! And I’m more than a week behind! I’ll remedy this by Christmas, I assure you.)

The DVDtalk website has posted what can only be a blatant challenge to any anime fan with decent taste. Yes, it’s a year-end “top 10″ list of domestic release titles. Mind you, they cheat a bit by listing two Miyazaki films at #6, but what the heck. I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to razz and rave on their picks a bit…

1. Samurai 7: I’ll grant you, this is a good series presented in a very nifty package. That said… what? Best series of the year over such fare as Fullmetal Alchemist? Over Samurai Champloo, even? I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. Yes, I know it’s a great homage to a classic film, but c’mon.

2. Ghost in the Shell SAC (2nd gig): I haven’t seen it. No comment.
3. Fullmetal Alchemist: With no qualms, I can easily say that this is the best series to come out of Japan’s anime studios in the last few years. No, really. It’s that good.
4. Planetes: Interpersonal drama in near-future space. It’s often amusing, sometimes sad, generally well produced and acted, and definitely worth seeing at least once, especially if you’re a space buff like Yours Truly.
5. Samurai Champloo: In case you didn’t already know, it’s Cowboy Bebop except with hip-hop instead of jazz and a feudal-era Japan instead of futuristic outer-space setting. And yet, it works amazingly well. This is one of those cutting-edge (pardon the pun) shows that may not be a general-purpose crowd-pleaser but delivers as a pinnacle of its art form.
6. Porco Rosso & Nausicaa: I haven’t seen Porco Rosso, but picking up Nausicaa on DVD was one of the true fanboy highlights of my year. The new dub leaves something to be desired, like most dubs, but seeing the whole movie and hearing the original voice talents at long last was a true joy. It’s a classic, pure and simple.
7. Appleseed: They made another one? Who knew? Apparently somebody did. I’ll see this eventually, I suppose.
8. Gankutsuou (The Count of Monte Cristo): Gonzo seems to like doing two things intermittently. Either they make a show that’s entirely for-the-masses action-adventure fluff (paging Bakuretsu Tenshi!) or something like Gankutsuou. The visual style alone merits, even demands, special mention. It’s a jarring, daring thing that you’ll either hate on sight or get used to. You’ve been warned. That said, the show is an interesting take on a classic storyline.
9. Gunslinger Girl: This is a good, if not great, take on the “girls with guns” motif. Its short run left me thinking that there must be another series coming along at some point, as I didn’t get a real sense of conclusion to the story. Also, the animation budget seems to decline quite a bit past the first few action-packed episodes. This doesn’t cut into the visual quality of the show, mind you, just the amount of action. One normally expects things to ramp up over the course of a series, but here it almost goes the other direction. Still, I recommend this to anyone who thought Noir was a neat concept but a bit slow and overwrought. (Which reminds me: I need to post a Noir review, don’t I? I just finished watching the boxed set…)
10. Area 88: Wait, wasn’t this a show from the 80s? Sorry, I never watched any of its incarnations. Ah well.

And there you have it. If nothing else, this gave me an excuse to write something other than a Mai Otome recap… which, yes, I’ll get back to shortly. Honest.

Oh, one more thing. Below the “top 10″ list on that page I linked you’ll find some other disc reviews. Somewhere in there the reviewer mentions Daphne in the Brilliant Blue as “one of the better series of the year.” I humbly submit that said reviewer is on crack. That, or they’re only in it for the nigh-gratuitous scantily-clad babe factor. I like scantily-clad babes, but the show itself was so gratingly lacking in plot and good dialog that I gave it up after five episodes. Better series, my ass.

Mai Otome #9

Whoops. I was supposed to get this one finished a week ago. I even posted all the screencaps to the gallery! I guess this week I’ll do something like the reverse of my lazy trick from a while back: I’ll just post copious screenies with very little commentary, instead of all commentary and no screenies…

Here’s the short synopsis of the episode: We’re teased with a beach episode but instead we get a grueling hike challenge that counts as a significant part of the semester grade for our up-and-coming Otome candidates. Arika and Erstin are paired up, but someone sabotages their call-for-help bracelets and, of course, they end up needing to call for help because Erstin falls down sick. When Arika tries to find help she instead bumps into a cyborg from the Aswald group who tries to eliminate our plucky young interloper, who ends up falling off a cliff into the sea. Other than that we’re treated to a lot of comedy beats and minor intrigue.
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Mai Otome #8

Well. I really let things slide, didn’t I? I have a good excuse (and we all know what those are like, don’t we?) involving visiting family, visiting girlfriend, and work stress, but you don’t want to hear about all of that. You want your long-awaited recap, don’t you? Of course you do.

When last we left our adorable young Master and Otome, they’d made a contract involving gems provided by Arika’s deus ex pendant. As this is a great big no-no, they’re now taking great pains to hide their new jewelry. Mind you, they’re not fooling anybody who matters. Natsuki knows, and Shizuru offers to discretely snoop around a bit to see how much the girls really understand about what they’ve gotten themselves into.
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ADV Writeup in Fortune

If you’re looking for a good writeup of the domestic (U.S. that is) anime distribution business, you might want to take a peek at the recent Fortune article, “It’s… Profitmón!”. Despite the somewhat-cutesy title, the article evenhandedly covers such topics as fansubbing, staying in touch with your company’s fanbase, embracing new distribution channels, and keeping the overhead low to maximise those profit margins. Say what you will about ADV’s output, one can’t fault them for putting forth the effort to remain a successful and respectable company.

It’s a good read for any anime fan, especially those of us who believe in the fansubbing scene’s power to direct distributors to good product.